


The day before the battle

by Clementines



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 03:19:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1535633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clementines/pseuds/Clementines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day before the big match, Bayern Munich VS Real Madrid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The day before the battle

**Author's Note:**

> My apologies if there are any mistakes; english is not my native language.
> 
> Hope you enjoy :)

The day before a crucial match is always a very strange one. You spend the hours divided into two feelings; on a hand you can’t wait to be tomorrow and play the great match, on the other side you’d like the day to never end so you can avoid the possibility of disappointment. It’s a bit like those moments when you throw a piece of money in the air; you can’t go back but you can’t do much either anymore and time gets suspended for a little while then, once the money falls down and you face the result, the time accelerates itself in order to compensate its previous stop. 

On those previous days each player has his own habitudes. I’ve always liked to think that it’s on those days when you can see who each of us really is. Marcelo is laughing his nervousness away like the funny guy he truly is, Pepe is half serious half clown while others like Iker isolate themselves in order to concentrate better. His own method is hard work but not enough to get exhausted before the big day. He likes to visualize things, visualize himself with the cup he so dearly wants, needs even. That’s what his dad always told him; do you want something really bad? Think about it, imagine it in your head and fifty percent of the work is done. So that’s what he does. 

The truth is everybody is very lonely on those days. They are a team, they are paired up in rooms, they win together and lose together but the day before they were alone. They were alone in front of their fears, alone in front of their expectations, alone in front of the excruciating wait. Those were tough days but if you couldn’t get through them, you didn’t have a chance to get through 90 minutes in the Allianz Arena in front of Bayern of Munich. People think it’s all about how you play in the field but it’s so much more than that, managing pressure may even be the biggest part of it. He is not really a good observer, he is more of an action type of guy but on those days he likes to look around. Today he likes what he sees; they really have a chance. It’s going to be hell but it may be their better chance. He was getting old; he couldn’t let more chances slip away between his fingers. 

That late afternoon Ancelotti gives a last speech before the big day. He doesn’t say much, he knows today is a time for solitude and silence. Tomorrow will be the time to fight and to put them all together. Today is the rest of the warrior, the calm before the tempest. So he says they have done a good work today and send them to bed asking them to get a nigh of full sleep. Obviously, that’s almost an impossible thing to achieve. When you’re young you think the dance in your stomach goes away but it never really does. Tomorrow was THE match of the season until now and they knew it, how could they sleep when they knew it by heart? 

He chats a little bit with the captains and decides to call it an early night. He stops by Marcelo and Pepe’s room in order to joke for a little while, he values those moments of false relax. Then he finally makes it to his room and sighs. He can let the mask fall. He may be the best player in the world, a big ego and a very confident person but he is as scared as anybody else in this hotel right now. He looks up and finds Fábio spread up on his bed listening to his IPod and looking through the window. An image of a younger Fábio in one of his first Portuguese concentrations appears in his head and he’s almost sure his friend is in the exact same pose. 

What is he looking through the window with such intensity? Is he even looking at something? He has always wondered what the hell went down in the blonde’s head. He was the one who knew him the best in the team, he suspected he was the one who knew him the best in the world and yet, sometimes, he seemed so out of reach even for him. He has always been a mystery, since the first day he met him and he loved that mystery. He was never sure if the blond was totally crazy or just a genius but he liked that he made him wonder things even after all those years. What did he think the day before a big match? 

The truth was that his behavior wasn’t very different from any other day. He was silent for the most part and smiled from time to time when someone cracked a joke. He didn’t look nervous or worried, he just was in his own world; Coentraland. Cristiano would like a ticket into it one of these days; he was sure to discover at least a very different place. He knew Fabio had heard him enter and he also knew why he stayed silent. If Cristiano wanted to talk, he would and would fin a listening ear on the other end but he wouldn’t pressure him into talking. The nights before the big games, Cristiano realizes, the blond make always everything be about Cristiano. The truth was that was the case most of the time, not only the days before the big events. 

He plays his friend’s little game and throws one of his shoes at him in a playful way in order to call for his attention. The blond turns his head towards him as a surprised person would do and Cristiano smiles. The whole world believed Fábio couldn’t catch anything that was going around him, sometimes Cristiano suspected he caught more than any of them, more than people give him credit for. His listeners are still on but the music is paused and what Cristiano doesn’t know is that he paused it the exact moment he entered the room, just in case. 

“What are you listening to?”

“As if you really care.”

Cristiano smiles again, he knows him too well for his own good. He sighs and sits down on his own bed. 

“I’m a bit scared.”

“Just a bit? I’m scared like shit.”

He has to laugh at his friend’s sincerity. He is a natural one. 

“One fucking match that decides if we’re heroes or villains against the best team in the world. You’d have to be crazy not to be scared.”

“We have pretty much lost la Liga and we’re still alive.”

Cristiano doesn’t believe a word he is saying but you couldn’t blame him to try. 

“Yeah, because nobody cares about la Liga. They just want one single thing, one single thing they have wanted for years; la décima. Give them that and you can lose as many ligas as you wish.”

He knows Fábio is right, he knows too well.

“And it’s the same for you, isn’t it?”

He nods. 

“We’re good.”

It’s Fábio who nods this time.

“We are but we’re playing in the enemy’s territory. The trees are going to burn remember?”

Cristiano smiles to the reference. Those fucking Germans, they were always so cocky and arrogant.

“They are going to burn but we will be the ones to set them on fire. Don’t you believe in us Fáb?”

Fábio smiles at Cristiano as an adult who has all the answers smiles at a child who just asked a very innocent question. 

“Of course I do but I also know that in every game like this one luck has a very important role. Don’t you forget it.”

Cristiano is feeling more depressed by the moment until Fabio’s voice interrupts his thoughts.

“And this time I’ve got a good feeling in the pit of my stomach. I think chance may have finally turned around. I feel it on our side. It’s in this room, can’t you feel it?”

Cristiano smiled. Could he feel it? He couldn’t feel shit. He could feel the ball and the grass but chance? That was a Coentraland’s thing. 

“Could you stop worrying? It’s not going to affect the outcome tomorrow, you know? There isn’t any relation of proportion between how much you think about it and how many goals you mark tomorrow.”

Cristiano gets up and goes to sit on the bed beside hsi friend who has made room for it. 

“What are you thinking about? What do you think about a day like today?”

Fábio closes his eyes and exhales slowly.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. I just try to enjoy the feeling, the moments we’ve got left. Tomorrow will change everything whatever the result is. I like how things are today so I just enjoy them while I can. Tomorrow will come and it will find me here waiting for it but, right now? Right now it’s still today.”

Cristiano looked at him dumbfounded. To think that most of the team believed Fáb to be mute... 

“I can’t do that.”

Fábio looks at him with a “Duh” face.

“That’s why you’re Cristiano Ronaldo and not Fábio Coentrao.”

Cristiano’s chuckle echoed in the room. 

“No shit.”

“That‘s why you need me.”

Cristiano lies down and turns to face the blond one.

“I do, huh?”

“Of course you do just like I need you. Someone has to calm you down from time to time and someone has to wake me from time to time. We’re a perfect fit.”

That could be true.

“Make me think about nothing for a while?”

No more words are needed when the blond accepts silently the request and starts kissing slowly his friend. They don’t talk about it before or after, they just do it when they feel like it. He slips his tongue into the awaiting mouth and slid his hands down the toned body under his own. Tonight is about Cristiano, about cleaning his head, about making him feel better. 

Tomorrow? Tomorrow will tell its own story but for now it was still today and today was about him loving the very pressured man under his body.


End file.
